Timeline

Timeline of things created

I would draw in the dirt with a stick in my backyard and give the weather for the week. To .. no one. This was before you could just broadcast shows from your phone.

I would act out tv shows with my toys, and even say 'previously on' when I picked them up the next day. Ending each 'episode' with a cliffhanger of sorts.

Later I would act out all my ideas by drawing comics, making cassette mixes off the radio, (completing a 'album' of random sounds, electronics, and other songs).

I borrowed a camcorder from my uncle and filmed 'comedy' sketches, and short films. It felt like a whole world had opened up.

In school I joined the future artists of america and worked on paintings and murals for the school. In college I was a political cartoonist, and radio station DJ. I became obsessed with producing shows (I had 3 at one point), and stayed locked away in the studio for full weekends .. asking listeners to bring food.

I channeled my need to say something into music and produced albums as a solo artist, and joined a bunch of bands.

But i think ..

IT ALL STARTED IN 1997...

This is when I think I started to become myself.

I arrived in Seattle after traveling across country with my buddy Toby. We lived out of our van, and I taught myself how to play guitar. I had a crap acoustic but started writing songs. Once I was 'stable' with a tiny room (we shared) I immediately began recording more music on cassette.

I named myself:

MINI LiFE

Albums: Self Titled, Powdered Milk and Pancakes, Stacy Basin, Kang

I'll find some of these mp3s and upload em.

I then got a job at a video store and quickly became the store manager. While working there I hired a film student who wanted to direct movies. We both liked Lynch and indie films, and talked about doing something creatively. We ended up producing a cable access show that was part David Lynch and part talk show. Filmed in his apartment it was called:

Syndicated Jive

I kept making albums and produced some CD's. Oooh the big time.

I sold them on CD Baby and Amazon, and it made me realize that I could actually touch the outside world with my creations. It wasn't distribution from a record label, but it was me packaging up my ideas and sending them out there.

Setting up this server felt like developing a show. This theme of wanting to turn all my creations into a structured 'program' would keep popping up throughout the years of creating stuff.

Around this time I was working with digital media at amazon.com. Encoding CD's, working with ebooks, and implementing new ways for people to get music digitally.

I was also teaching myself video editing, and my first professional video was for the Naked Chef. Even though I didn't direct, produce, or star in the video it felt great. Right after I worked on something small to promote a Francis Ford Coppola movie shortly after, and I felt like my editing skills were coming online.

Producing a bunch of music (and being around a lot of musicians) I decided to put the two forms together and started making music videos when not at work. I experimented with a lof of ideas .. all with some very cheap cameras.

One of the first videos is still one of my favorites, mainly because I loved the song so much. The goal was to try and mirror the feelings I got from the song..with a video.

1985 - Blue/Purple Failure

The second music video was never fully exported at a high quality bitrate so this is all I have. It's hard to see some of the facial expressions .. but you get the idea.

It was for the band B-18.

I worked on my first live action music video for a song of mine called Stupid Open Eyes. It involved filming at some creepy abandoned school, black paint, and crossing over into heaven. I think.

I can't find a digital copy of it anywhere.

I headed to Portland to record a few songs in an actual studio. It was a rad place, but I wasn't ready. I needed to play more live.

I decided to start playing out at small coffeehouses and clubs. I would record backing tracks on CD and then play it along side my live performance. It gave me experience and it helped my performance abilities.

BUT I wanted to play louder, and was tired of trying to sync up with the CD. It also would skip sometimes. That .. was not pretty.

I decided to start a band with this girl I had a crush on.

I know I know.

The band was

MAX FISCHER

I created this video and a TON of others for the band. I actually burned a DVD of music videos and live stuff.

I recently found a copy, and uploaded this snippet of it online:

After we had been a band for awhile we got to experience this special evening. It really felt like we had won the crowd over as the songs went on, and it was an early feeling of acceptance. A weird 2 piece band convincing the room to come along for the ride. I felt this something, from a live performance, that I knew i'd want more of.

(side note I didn't film it, just added an effect to the footage).

We toured a bit. I made albums and EPs. I made more music videos for our band and other bands I liked.

I made this music video which I CANNOT find online anywhere. It was for Bored With All This and included footage from this awesome stop animated astronaut rabbit. If anyone ever finds it please message me!

I really liked that video.

In 2005 I took a hiatus to San Francisco and while working as a game tester during the day I worked on a side project/band called

Ryu vs. Ken

I don't think these tracks work anymore (because Myspace has changed so many time), but you can try em.

I headed back to Seattle and changed my solo artist name to

Pallaton

(Native American for warrior). I recorded more albums. One of them was called A Stick Can Be A Spaceship (referencing when I would play with sticks and pretend they were epic starships).

I had a friend Tim help me record half of that album (the other half I recorded on my own, like I had done with those early cassette when I started). It's still one of my favorite albums, and it was my last full album as Pallaton.

The song everyone kept talking about on the album was Even Though. So my buddy Justin (Director/Editor/Cameraman) decided to help me film a music video for it. A mutual friend Ryan took my weird idea and made sense out of it - and made these rad storyboards. Justin then figured out how to make them real. We actually had a makeup person and an actress. Both of which, to this day, I wish we could've paid more. I still say my cheeks look to puffy in that one death scene. If Justin is reading this I know he's saying 'shut up they look fine!'.

Around this time I also recorded an album with musician and friend Visitor. The project was called

NoMAD

It was a few days recording together in a house studio. My first experience recording in a house with all the equipment and instruments we needed. It was a great experience, and reminded me that you could make some awesome stuff in a weekend.

I had made some music videos for the songs as well:

Later that year I took off on a small acoustic tour with the group 1985.

I decided to do a mini documentary/journal video of the trip:

It was 2009 and I was a bit burnt out on music. I decided to finally work on videos full time. I didn't know how exactly, but after watching a TON of shows coming out of San Francisco I knew that if I went there .. it would work out. I'd make it.

Once I arrived I slept on my friends floor and eventually answered an ad on Craigslist. Soon after I was writing scripts, filming segments, and eventually hosting content for a little company called

Mevio

While hosting here and there and helping produce the tech show when I wasn't on it .. I was also editing videos. Non stop. I was given tech reviews from

PC Mag

and I literally learned on the job. I had used weird budget editing software to make all those music videos, but now I was using Final Cut Pro. The industry standard. If I didn't know something I asked how to do it. Similar to my time at amazon.com I asked a million questions, and literally was editing all the time. Special thanks to Lukasz and Nick for showing me the ropes.

I was also starting to help produce a show called

Cranky Geeks

I used to watch the show before I headed down to SF so it was a treat to get to work on it. I was a guest, co-producer, then producer.

Most of the time I was behind the camera, and organizing mics and note cards. For me it was awesome being in the chat room and off camera for most shows. It allowed me to see what worked and what didn't.

This friendship with John would lead to me having him put on a beard and play the

Techgrouch

It was a series that I loved (still love), and would produce again at the drop of a hat.

Eventually I became the producer of Mevio's Tech Channel, helping produce a bunch of nerdtastic content including

DL TV

During this time I was able to work in the Ziff Davis offices (meeting some of the 1UP crew) and reveling in the fact we had so much actual tech to work with for shows. Working on DLTV helped me introduce a segment that I created called

Mevio Today

We would have to come up with a new idea every day for some sort of sketch or funny way to give out the days content. Manly Man was born from this. I thought of him on the way to work.

Then we brought him back for a Halloween version:

And the outtakes of that still make me laugh to this day:

Rad on the Web

It would spin off and be one of our most successful shows at Mevio. Here's it's introduction.

It was bare bones, but led to a live show with an attached chat room, and thousands of live viewers.

Most of the episodes were part of an online service and no longer available online. I have a few and will upload em, but for now here's some outtakes.

While producing shows for our tech network I was also roped into helping with some of our daily videos that explained what was on our network. They usually were little skits or scripts that we came up with that day (a lot of mine were thought up on the walk to work). Including Manly Man.

Alongside creating videos for our daily recap videos I helped produce a video game show called

Press Pause

The show had many iterations .. here are a few:

While producing the show I would guest spot on XNA Roundup:

Which at some point, I just brought Nick into the Mevio studios to film.

Dan Hsu on the show before I convinced him to join me as a co-host.

Here's some segments of people playing the game mentioned in the video above. It was a staple of the show for awhile. All guests must play Stop the Express!

Side note. I actually met Dan by interviewing him for a remote segment on Rad on the Web.

The crossover with Press Pause and Bitmob (Dan's new company) occurred at times when Dan would have me on his podcast. Here's an episode with Tara Long, Greg Miller, and I. MP3

I also helped co-develop a weird sketch comedy type show with Michael Butler called

Comedy Underground

I then got to work with Gamespot. In a couple different ways.

We worked on a series that was tosh.0 meets games called

Screen Tear

We did one 'season' of the show. It full of crazy clips, controversy, weird ideas and sketches, dumb jokes, and tons of views.

Writers room discussion with John Davison:

The episode that got us on the map was episode 3. We had won over the people who originally hated it, and it seemed like the perfect coming together of all the people working on it.

I apologize however for the some of the boob related content .. gosh.

After this series ended I helped with some...

Gamespot E3 Coverage

and got to interview people like Adam West, and Snoop Dogg. Both which were not weird at all. Snoop gave me a nick name Lo$.

We had days where we had to produce 15 videos, and it was a learning process on how to cover a really big live show.

At some point I needed a full time job again. I had been freelancing with multiple projects, like

SONY

helping them promote their product the SONY Dash. I created short segments that highlighted features and apps.

But I still needed a new home for my video skills, and I found it with

IDG

The parent company to PCWorld and Macworld I was again, stepping into an established company who had some incredible history. They brought me on to be the video producer for their new brand TechHive.

The first year there we covered Mobile World Congress in Spain

and CES in Vegas (where I co-produced 80+ videos).

While there I produced the show for E3. It was my first attempt and corralling a group of people, and organizing editors and writers.

I decided to try my hand at a Kickstarter project with a small group of people - a video game talk show featuring a puppet.

Everybody Game

79 people came through in the end and helped fund it.

Example episode:

After getting back to Seattle (for a much needed break from producing shows every week/every day) I took a short break.

But the need to create was too great. So I started a podcast. Audio would be easier to edit, and gave me a hiatus from video. It was about videos games and called

Video Game Break

it started with just friends but then morphed (as many of my projects do) into interviews and other guest hosts.

As I was currently sleeping on the couch of my director/editor friend Justin (who co-produced the music video for Even Though with me) I asked him if he wanted to mess around with a video idea I had been doing back in SF. That turned into a (mostly) weekly video series

Video Game Breakfast

I ate breakfast while presenting video game news. It worked until I realized I really didn't like eating breakfast that much. Also, it was a challenge to eat and talk.

At the same time.

So it later turned back into Video Game Break .. video version.

Around this time I was writing a talk show. It was close to the one that had been forming in my head since I started thinking about making shows.

My buddy Justin bank rolled it and we assembled a small team and got to work.

It became:

Whiz Bang

We shopped the show around to local TV. We had the idea that a regional channel could pick it up, and we could sell some ads to recoup costs. Even though a local affiliate was interested we got a wake up call in the monetizing department.

The cost of producing the show was greater than the ads we were able to get. Shaz bot! I was sooo close.

More Video Game Break

I still continued to produce the podcast and occasionally do a live version of it.

A fun moment was when I got together a few game people I dug and put them together on a panel at PAX:

Determined to get on TV (after it was discovered that the pilot we made couldn't make money) I decided to go the route of Cable Access. Someone had told me our local channel was getting an HD station soon, and the team there seemed excited to welcome in new talent. So Video Game Break the cable access show was born.

Having to fund the show out of my own pocket, and struggling to find a job with some sort of actual income .. I had to shut it down after a few episodes.

I went back to the drawing board. And while at the drawing board .. picked up a job at a game developer/publisher. I had reported on the games industry for so long I thought it was high time I crossed over.

The company was:

Big Fish

I helped jump start their YouTube channel, Twitter, and Facebook page. I went right to work at developing different video templates they could use to promote their games. One of the first videos (although out of focus..I know I Know) was similar to my usual style

Also, I helped produce their weekly show .. reminding me of my first job in video. Writing and producing Mevio Tech.

At some point, I joined up on that show and then on a spin off called The Pond.

Similarly to Mevio actually, I was given the ability to try a bunch of things. A few examples of my more out there ideas:

A Twin Peaks inspired mini-ad for a slots game:

Sketch stuff:

I then began to experiment with what could become commercials.

One actually did make it through to be a TV commercial:

I also worked on behind the scenes and documentary style videos:

Here and there I would get offers to work on side projects, and one such (awesome) one was:

Orca Jam 2016

Microsoft

For a short while I produced some content for Microsoft Studios. I created some mini documentaries, update videos, comedic gameplay vids, E3 coverage, and early shows for their streaming platform Mixer.

I also co-hosted the last day of E3 Daily, and it was a blast.

Then I entered my limbo days.

I found myself freelancing, and searching for a company or new connection to develop a show. What it would be .. I still didn't know.

I decided to produced a daily audio show with a new company called Anchor.

Audio was quicker, and costed less. It was easy to produce and also allowed me to discuss games, music, and movies, some random thoughts on the world, and talk in funny voices.

A Lot Of Things

The Spoon

Wanting to help out a friend I developed some videos for his site The Spoon, and learned a lot about food tech.

The Carlos Rodela Show

To practice my character acting skillz (and not get rusty) I created a series of videos where I play a few different people that fight with each other. They would represent aspects of humanity I didn't care for, as well as bits of myself.

It was cathartic.

Among many (many) other video projects I produced during my limbo days I wanted to do something with really badly drawn characters and so I started making:

Badly Drawn Adventure Tales

And now .. I am back to the beginning. In a way.

I still want to be a weatherman.

Well maybe not to tell the weather, but to have a show on TV.

The one I was imagining being on all those years ago. Where I could stand up and deliver a weird, offbeat take on the world, tell some jokes, and know that I was reaching people. Helping them process their day, and bringing something positive into the world.